Six issues that will dominate COP30
7/11/2025: The 30th UN Climate Change Conference is taking place after two consecutive years of record-high global temperatures, and at a time when international relationships are being strained by wars and trade disputes. Here are six issues that delegates are expected to grapple with in Brazil.
Source: UN Environment Programme
US skips UN periodic rights review
7/11/2025: The US has missed the deadline to participate in its UN Universal Periodic Review, a process where the human rights record of every member state is reviewed by other states. No UN member state has failed to be reviewed since its creation in 2006.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Cautious optimism greets new global forest fund at COP30
7/11/2025: Architects of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, to be promoted at COP30 in Brazil, hope to secure $125 billion from sovereign and institutional investors, creating a permanent tropical forest conservation fund. Surplus yields will be divided among qualifying forest countries, with priority for Indigenous and local communities.
Source: Mongabay
US Women, Peace, and Security Act stalled by loss of staff
7/11/2025: The Trump administration is dragging its feet on obligations under the 2017 Women, Peace, and Security Act which recognizes the benefits of inclusion of women in peace and security efforts. The agencies and personnel responsible for reporting on the Act have been dismantled.
Source: Devex
Restoring free trade in post-US economic order
7/11/2025: As the US retreats from free trade leadership, plurilateral groupings in Asia-Pacific and European regions are moving to restore a rules-based multilateral trading system. The best solution lies with a reformed World Trade Organization, even if that means reviving it without the US.
Source: East Asia Forum
Nuclear disarmament conversations cannot lose traction
6/11/2025: In the last week, the US and the Russian Federation have flouted the regulations and norms around nuclear non-proliferation and are flirting more openly with nuclear might. The NEW-Start treaty, the last remaining arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia, is set to expire in February 2026.
Source: Inter Press Service
People, not profits and power, must influence negotiations at UN Climate summit
5/11/2025: Amnesty International calls on governments attending COP30 to resist aligning with US President Trump’s denial of the accelerating climate crisis. It also appeals for significant new climate finance, in the form of grants, not loans, from states that are the worst culprits for greenhouse gas emissions.
Source: Amnesty International
Taxing fossil fuel industry could unlock climate finance
5/11/2025: The Baku to Belem Roadmap, published for the UN Climate Conference (COP30), aims to present how to increase climate finance for developing countries to at least US1.3 trillion annually by 2035. Greenpeace welcomes recognition that the UN tax convention could address concessional climate finance.
Source: Greenpeace International
Killings and crackdown follow disputed elections in Tanzania
4/11/2025: Human Rights Watch alleges that the Tanzanian authorities’ violent response to election-related protests further undermines the credibility of the electoral process, in which the incumbent president gained 98 percent of the vote. It appears that no journalists working for international media were pemitted to cover the elections.
Source: Human Rights Watch
1.7 billion people experience lower crop yields due to land degradation
3/11/2025: The 2025 State of Food and Agriculture report published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization finds that agricultural productivity, rural livelihoods and food security are impacted by human-induced land degradation, affecting approximately 1.7 billion people. The report defines land degradation as a long-term decline in the land’s ability to deliver essential ecosystem functions and services.
Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization